Books: Red Pachyderm

ROAD TO CALVARY—Alexei Tolstoy—Knopf ($4.50).

When 62-year-old Alexei Tolstoy died in 1945, he left to posterity more than 20 novels and plays that had made him the U.S.S.R.'s most honored man of letters and wealthiest proletarian (his fortune was estimated at $500,000).

Back in the days of the Russian Revolution, Tolstoy had fought in the ranks of the White Army; but after a few years of exile in Paris he begged, and was granted, permission to return to his homeland. Treated with rare respect by a government that well knew the magical powers of...

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